4.0 KiB
[DC][RT] Dragons and the Free Rider Problem
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Author: u/ToaKraka https://i.imgur.com/OQGHleQ.png*
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URL: http://www.critical-hits.com/blog/2015/09/21/dragons-and-the-free-rider-problem/
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Score: 24
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Created: 2015-09-21T13:55:11
Post:
Comments:
u/Nighzmarquls [+8] (3 hours later)
I love these things. But I still think it would be highly rational of dragons who want to hoard various metal gegaws and sleep on them to go into the lucrative business of backing a kingdom's money with their hoards.
It's a win win situation for both.
The dragon is given 'tribute' and all it has to give up is some form of authenticated but ultimately worthless legal papers.
The dragon gets what it wants (and as a further cost there are also sheep and what have you) and the country gets to boast that it's gold is protected by a dragon and increase trust in their currency.
u/None [+6] (10 hours later)
They would have an awfully hard time with audits. God forbid they want to trade hard gold for resources.
u/Calsem [+4] (13 hours later)
Until you try to get the money back from the dragon....
u/PeridexisErrant [+10] put aside fear for courage, and death for life (13 hours later)
It's got all the best features of the true gold standard and fractional-reserve banking: all the gold is there, and nobody is ever going to be able to withdraw it!
u/Nighzmarquls [+4] (a day later)
Precisely, in my head canon I usually find dragons are very well modeled as effectively corporations. And in this model the dragon is acting as a central bank.
Loans, with interest to be paid either in labor, precious metals or fungible goods like sheep.
Pretty much dragons have the OPPOSITE effect on lands and kingdoms from what you'd expect. They increase and vitalize economies with their demands.
But they also are terrible monsters as well.
u/Nighzmarquls [+2] (16 hours later)
That's why the money is always in script with written forms. and just exchange. You don't ever 'REDEEM' them you just exchange them to other people.
u/ToaKraka [+4] https://i.imgur.com/OQGHleQ.png (3 seconds later)
tl;dr:
A village is under threat from a large dragon that's decided to settle in some nearby hills. The mayor asks for help from the duke, but the duke does a cost-benefit analysis and decides it isn't worth the trouble:
The Duke made quick calculations about politics, forces, money, and how many of his expensive men the dragon would eat. Most of his dragon-slaying mounted forces were relatives. The Duke needed them should the King decide to do something random and Kingly. Having all his relatives dead by dragon was a good way to lose his hereditary Dukedom to his next-door peers. And the Duke said to the young [Mayor], ["]What you need, son, is some Murder Hobos.["]
The mayor asks for money from the villagers to hire some adventurers, but the people in each class (serfs, free peasants, and rich landholders/merchants) don't want to pay:
- The richer ones don't want to waste money on protecting the more numerous but obviously-inferior poorer people; and
- The poorer ones don't want to waste money on protecting the assets of richer people when the results won't trickle down to them.
The [Mayor] had a choice: he could go around the mess, go to the Transmuter Bankers and take out a loan and put his village up at collateral, or try to incentivize the peasants to help pay voluntarily. He decided to try to incentivize the villagers first. He needed to recast the problem as a threat to privately owned goods to get everyone in his village to pay what they could for Murder Hobos to remove the dragon.
With his own money, the mayor hires a bard as an advisor. The bard orchestrates a scheme to lure the dragon down into the village's outskirts and scare everybody into paying the money for the adventurers, who kill the dragon.